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Custard, you're really going places! Satin Doll is so cool. Is there any chance of you meeting up with local jazzers?

Thanks for your nice words 10.Unfortunately in Sydney there is no demand for swing/bebop/The American Songbook. There is only one famous jazz bar The Blue Note/The Basement which is vastly different to the famous Blue Note in NYC.Here jazz is jazz fusion and Latin. You will be lucky to find a professional jazz player who knows My Funny Valentine.

the joi tunes were perfect. I really liked how even the triplets were and you really kept tight time.

The improv sounded good too, that was one long line. After you're confortable, what you do is keep going with the same progresssions. Sometimes long sometimes short. Experiment a little bit with all those things we talked about.

And also, spend some time with the slice of pizza. Starting on the first beat, you'd actually say "Slice of Pizza". Starting on an offbeat, you'd say "A Slice of pizza, slice of pizza ..." and that's going to create a better flow. Your lines can be shorter. When you run out of steam, you take a rest and let it rest until something new comes. Well, you know what I mean.

Hey KnotsYou mentioned in the Advanced forum that you don't like some of the changes in the Real Book. I'm glad you mentioned this issue. In only my 2nd tune, I am also finding that.From Real Book 1, the turnaround at the end of the 1st A section of Satin Doll is E min7 b5, A7b9. This suggests a D min 6 tonality. To my ears this doesn't fit the light hearted, tongue-in-cheek song which is major elsewhere.Whilst this modulation to minor sounds nice for improv and I've learnt it this way, right from the beginning I have wanted to change this measure to A7 which suggests a D maj 7 tonality. Is this legit ?

Hey LauraI just found your Fugue in Ab maj. Sounds so hard, you handled the counterpoint really well. I liked how you didn't go over the top emotional and that your left hand was so strong for the climax towards the end. You have no excuse, get to work on your walking bass !

It's interesting how very nice everyone is to each other here constantly. I propose a meeting scientifically calculated to be equidistant to all JOI threaders, at said place and time to commence a massive food fight. Pies preferred.

I have mixed feelings about real book. On one hand they're very convenient to pick up tunes quickly and to play tunes with others that you've never heard. On the other hand, they're limited and biases.

The Bill Evans interview mentions fakebooks. But Bill says, here, all we have is C and G. So the rest is just mostly his own interpretation and very clever way to navigate harmony. In the Bill Evans book that you have, you can see some great example of moving from one chord to another.

But the a- D7 before has a A-75b in that same recording. Not in my book. So you get a glimpse of minor there. I think you can go either way, especially when you do a 2-5 that resolves to a minor.I've also seen it as C7 Bb7 A7 which works good.

Now I'm working on "here's that rainy day". For that, I think the leadsheet is just fine. The tune's tricky but fairly straight forward.

Where leadsheet at odd are on funky tunes. Like Cantalope, Watermelon man or Sidewinder. You really have to transcribe those patterns because the book just has the chord symbol for it, but not how to play it.

But the real point I was trying to make is that I don't think you need a book to play. I think after you read your changes, the first thing to do is memorize them. I have found that the easiest way to memorize chord changes is to simply learn them in 3 or 4 random keys. At least for me, it's allowed me to memorize plenty of tunes very fast.

If you go to a jam session, Blue Bossa or All the things you are are called, and the guy needs the leadsheet, it should give you a hint as to the level of the musicians.

I agree you shouldn't look at a sheet when you play. As you said how can you improvise if you don't know the changes coming up ?

Re transposing into another key, this is still huge brain-ache for me. It's great training though and I am sure it will help me for when I go back to the JOI Solo Pattern when I finish JOI. I can play the A section of Satin Doll badly in F maj.

I'm still on the A section at the moment.Are you suggesting that when I'm more advanced I can treat the whole A section as C maj ?I'm pleased you suggested I study Letter to Evan last year. Yes it contains the mind-blowingly beautiful 5 measures where Bill goes from G7 sus to C7 sus to F maj 7 using shapes and alterations.

Hey LauraI just found your Fugue in Ab maj. Sounds so hard, you handled the counterpoint really well. I liked how you didn't go over the top emotional and that your left hand was so strong for the climax towards the end. You have no excuse, get to work on your walking bass !

Thanks - interesting comment about the emotional element. there is emotion there, but of the stiff-upper-lip variety.

I have warmed to CP in this one, which has taken me about a month. I can hear him lyrical here. Elsewhere i haven't heard that. And the trumpet at the end is divine.

One thing I've learned that takes adjusting to, is it's not just the wild leaps he makes, but he also has a strange sense of timing. He has no problem starting a phrase on platform 9 and 3/4, or any kind of 5 for the price of 3, 7 for the price of 8 arrangement.

That's a hard solo!!Overall nicely done. This one's incredibly hard because of the slow tempo and blazing runs. But very smooth. Something like Perhaps or Moose would be easier because you can slow down the record a good amount and it still sounds very good.

Thanks knotty, that was really difficult. I settled on 80% speed. Some of the runs I could slow to 35% and learn, but I can't play the whole thing at 35% so there seemed little point. I'm more interested in the lyrical bits than the mad runs.

I've done Moose and Perhaps in previous lessons and now I'm on Parker's mood - but I'm only going to do 12 bars or so, because I want to move on.

Who do you think for trumpet? You said previously maybe Howard Mcghee. The recording is from Now's the Time volume 4. Based on that it could have been Miles, and I think it was Miles.

It's been a Froggy Month, I managed to finally make it through the doggy fray with only 2.5 blatant errors. With fierce concentration and several dozen more repetitions, I should be able to bring it down to one.

Hey NormI thought it sounded cool the way you detached at the end of your lines for the last section, it sounded like a frog jumping

Hey 10I looked ahead to Lesson 42 and found melodic minor hanons.

Hey KnotsI'm up to Lesson 41. Would you remember what jazz standard is No-one but You ? It's in F maj.Have fun with your IMF concert on Wednesday, I hope Christine Lagarde can make it.

Hey DaveI hope Dick Hyman has a fire extinguisher with you two cookin' in Florida.I achieved my objective of learning Satin Doll in one month, my improv speed is 69 bpm with this one, I hope to post when it reaches 80 bpm.

Well Dick had a minor operation last week and had to put off our recording for awhile. I practiced all day for a few months gettin ready, so it was too bad. Hopefully he will have a smooth recovery and we'll be able to do it shortly. The arrangements he's written of the already difficult Tristano lines should be heard, they are highly advanced and unusual. I learned tons practicing for the recording so I'm very grateful for that. Plus Christmas in NYC is dynamite. We'll leave this to the greater will and see what happens.

Hi DaveI'm sorry to hear this news.Hopefully Dick will be better very soon.I can only imagine how disappointed you must be, as well as Dick, and the people who thought they were going to your pre-Christmas concert.

Arranging a Tristano tune sounds very ambitious. Yeah must have been a lot of hard work to practice complexity on top of complexity !

You would have thought, wouldn't you? For the major-minor, I can do C to a, F to d and now working on Bb to g. I've just not had the time to put into it that I would like, but been distracted by other instruments, and other things on piano. But I do do a bit of JOI everyday, even if only the hanon and voicings.

Speaking of hanons, that is interesting custard, about the melodic minor. But please, whatever you do, don't look at hanon #44. How are you doing with these? I had really hit a wall around 130 with lessons 22-24. Then come lesson 25, and somehow it all just felt a lot easier. When I looked at the metronome, it was over 160. So go figure.

Good going Norm, or should I say, ribbet ribbet!

Dave, have a wonderful Christmas time, and my healing vibes are heading in Dick's direction.

Regarding a joiful Christmas get-together, could I tentatively suggest Sat 17th? I have family here on Sunday. The 24th is also possible for me, but that might be a bit close for others. It may be we're just too busy this time of year, if it doesn't work out, it just doesn't work out.